an introduction to urban housing design - at home in the city

An Introduction to Urban Housing Design
AT HOME IN THE CITY
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In memory of my mother
Madge
1920–2004
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An Introduction to Urban Housing Design
AT HOME IN THE CITY
Graham Towers
AMSTERDAM • BOSTON • HEIDELBERG • LONDON • NEW YORK • OXFORD
PARIS • SAN DIEGO • SAN FRANCISCO • SINGAPORE • SYDNEY • TOKYO
Architectural Press is an imprint of Elsevier
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Architectural Press
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First published 2005
Copyright © 2005, Graham Towers. All rights reserved
The right of Graham Towers to be identified as author of this work
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CONTENTS
Foreword xi
Preface xv
Introduction: What is urban housing? 1
PART ONE – ISSUES IN URBAN HOUSING
1 Context: The Environmental Imperative 19
Climate change 19
Population change 22
A new policy for housing 27
Where to build 33
Key points 37
Case examples
1A Leamington Spa 28
1B Kings Cross Railway Lands 34
2 Standards: Dividing the Space 39
The drive to raise standards 39
Changing attitudes to housing density 44
Density and housing form 50
The advantages of high density 56
Key points 59

3 Infrastructure: The Urban Neighbourhood 61
Community facilities 61
The idea of neighbourhood 65
Urban villages 66
Sustainable communities 72
Fitting in with urban form 78
Key points 81
Case example
3A Greenwich Millennium Village 73
4 Housing forms: The Design of Urban Space 83
The urban legacy 83
The enduring forms of urban housing 93
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Housing for new needs 101
The public realm 104
Key points 109
5 Construction: The Green Agenda 111
Energy conservation 111
Renewable energy sources 116
Water management 119
Conserving environmental resources 121
Off-site construction 126
Key points 131
Case examples
5A Housing at Stadlau, Vienna 114
5B Flats at Chorlton Park, Manchester 125
6 Reclamation: Re-using Built Space 133
The importance of existing buildings 133
Improving the efficiency of existing housing 136
Conversion and modernisation 143

Using redundant space 148
Key points 156
Case examples
6A Priory Court, Walthamstow 140
6B Grange Court, Hackney 149
6C Box Works, Manchester 152
7 Design quality: A Question of Taste 159
The image of the house 159
A framework for quality 165
Customisation of housing space 170
Democratic design 175
Key points 182
Case examples
7A Housing at Bercy, Paris 168
7B Borneo, Amsterdam 176
8 Perspective: Cities of Tomorrow 183
A world more urbanised 183
The city in Europe 187
European urban issues 195
Towards sustainability 202
Key points 204
Case examples
8A The Regeneration of Kreutzberg, Berlin 189
8B Housing in Latvia 193
vi CONTENTS
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PART TWO – CASE STUDIES
A High-Density Social Housing
Iroko, Coin Street, London 209
B High-Density Commercial Housing

Rope Works, Manchester 215
C An Urban Village on a ‘Brownfield’ Site
West Silvertown, London 221
D Model for a Sustainable Urban Block
Homes for Change, Manchester 227
E Homes for Young Single People: I
Foyer, Swansea 233
F Homes for Young Single People: II
Caspar 1, Birmingham 239
G Car-Free Social Housing
Slateford Green, Edinburgh 245
H A Prototype for Sustainable Urban Housing
Bedzed, Sutton 251
I A Project Using Modular Construction
Sixth Avenue, York 257
J Regenerating Social Housing: I
Marquess Estate, London 263
K Regenerating Social Housing: II
Gulden Kruis, Bijlmemeer, Amsterdam 269
L Redevelopment of a Major ‘Brownfield’ Site
Hammarby Sjöstad, Stockholm 275
M Renewal of an Old Urban Area
Ferencváros, Budapest 281
References 287
Further Reading 299
Index 302
CONTENTS vii
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FIGURE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Figure 0.2 Photograph copyright Leeds City Council
Figure 1.5 Photograph by Colin Baker
Figure 2.1 Drawing reproduced from Homes for Today and
Tomorrow. London: HMSO, 1961
Figures 2.3 and 2.4 Drawings by Le Corbusier and Walter Gropiue,
reproduced by permission of DACS
Figure 2.5 Drawing by Harley Sherlock
Figures 2.6 and 2.7 Drawings reproduced from Sustainable Residential
Quality – Exploring the Housing Potential of Large
Sites (London Planning Advisory Committee,
2000) by permission of Greater London
Authority
Figure 3.1 Copyright held by the Duchy of Cornwall
Photograph by Provincial Pictures
Figure 3.2 Drawing reproduced by permission of the
Princes Foundation
Figure 3.3 Drawing reproduced by permission of Taylor
Woodrow
Figure 4.3 Drawing reproduced from New Architecture of
London (Architectural Association, c 1965)
Figures 5.1 and 5.2 Photographs by Norman Beddington
Figure 6.3 Drawing by Harley Sherlock
Figure 6.7 Photograph reproduced by permission of Taylor
Woodrow
Figure 6.8 Photograph by Ombretta Romice
Figures 6.9–6.12 Copyright Urban Splash, reproduced by
permission
Figure 7.3 Photograph by Peter Taylor
Figure 7.4 Reproduced from ‘Plan general de la zac’ in the
brochure titled ‘Development du plan d’ame-

nagement de zone de Bercy’ by Jean-Pierre
Buffi & Associes, Paris
Figure 7.5 Drawing reproduced by permission of
Architeturstudio Herman Hertzberger
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Figures 7.10 and 7.11 Photographs copyright PRP Architects
Figures 7.12 and 7.13 By permission of Stedelijke Woningdienst
Amsteerdam, Projectmangmentbureau (PMB),
dienst Ruimtelijke Ordening (dRO) and the
Grondbedrijf city of Amsterdam, Amsterdam,
1999
Figures A1–A7 By permission of Haworth Tomkins
Drawings reproduced from Architecture Today
Figures B1–B7 By permission of Coolblue PR for George
Wimpey City
Figure C1 By permission of Gardner Stewart
Figures D1–D4 Drawings supplied by MBLC Architects ϩ
Urbanists
Figures E1–E7 By permission of PCKO Architects
Figures F1–F7 By permission of Alford Hall Mognahan and
Morris
Photographs by Tim Soar
Figures G1–G3 By permission of Hackland and Dore
Isomettric and type plan reproduced from
Architecture Today
Figures G4–G7 Photographs by John Reiach
Figures H1–H3 By permission of Bill Dunster Architects
Figures I1–I7 By permission of Cartwright Pickard Architects
Drawings reproduced from Architecture Today
Figures J1, J3, J5 and J7 Copyright PRP Architects

Figure K1 By permission of THOTT Publishing, Bussum
Copyright Bob Broddel, Hilversum, The
Netherlands
Figures K2, K3 and K4 By permission of ‘Projectdocumentatie
Woningbouplannen Amsterdam 1994’ Stedelijke
Woningdienst Amsteerda, bureau P/A – pro-
duktonwikkeling, Amsterdam, 1994
Figures K5–K8 Photographs copyright PRP Architects
Figures L1, L2, By permission of Jan Inke-Hagstróm, Manager –
L3 and L6 Planning, The Hammarby Sjöstad Project,
Stockholm
Figures L4, L6 and L7 Photographs copyright PRP Architects
Figure M1 Copyright Local Government of Ferencváros
District number 9, Budapest
All other drawings and photographs are by the author.
x FIGURE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
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FOREWORD
TONY MONK
Housing of course means homes. To most people this is their most
treasured possession. It is not just bricks and mortar or a financial
investment; it is a vital part of their life. ‘You mould the building and the
building moulds you’ as Winston Churchill is said to have put it. Home
is crucial to everybody’s daily well-being. As such it is normally treated
with pride, and its character and contents are an extension of their per-
sonality. The creation of a home is not therefore just an intellectual
design exercise detached from the occupant. It should be their design. It
is their castle. The user of the home’s personal needs and likes should
be paramount. You would think this is stating the obvious. Yet it is a
strange anomaly that, apart from a few individual houses, the vast major-

ity of dwellings are designed without the tenants or purchasers ever see-
ing their new home until after it had been built. Almost everybody else,
it seems, is involved in the process except the very people who will live
in the accommodation. Instead, the developer, the housing association,
the volume house builder, the estate agent, the local planning author-
ity, the architect, and the design and build teams all take vital decisions
about the content, quality, production and appearance of these proper-
ties without any of them actually living in the homes. The future occu-
pants are barely consulted in spite of the decisions having a profound
influence on them. The need to involve the users and the existing com-
munity in the housing procurement process is indeed obvious.
‘The problem of the homeless’ has been reducing since the days of
Charles Dickens. It is and will always be in the political spot-light and the
balance between private ownership and rented accommodation will
continually change. Volume house builders are now producing the
majority of homes for commercial sales. They are also required with
their developments to carrying various direct housing taxes, the largest
imposes on them the responsibility of producing 30% or more of the
accommodation for a housing association to buy at cost; who then man-
ages and rents out the properties to various types of subsidised tenants
or key workers. This novel solution combines the two types of housing,
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xii FOREWORD
both public and private. It uses private finance while it is viable, but it is
only a solution while the market economy permits it. This current
method of housing provision relies on a vibrant private housing sector.
There is, however, a limit to the type and quantity of housing that this
commercial funding and its construction process can produce. It con-
centrates on reliable repetitive market-driven solutions, usually two
bed-roomed flats in viable locations. It therefore tends to neglect the

larger family accommodation and smaller units in poorer areas.
The main problem with relying solely on this production route is that
insufficient homes are being built in this country in response to local
needs, as it only satisfies commercial demands. Only 175000 homes are
being built each year. This is against the projected requirement in the
Barker Report of over 200 000 and the minimum target of 189 000 per
year until 2021 set by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. This vol-
ume does not compare at all with the annual production of homes in the
years following the Second World War which peaked at nearly 500 000
units. This was a period of housing priority when local authorities were
compelled to meet their own housing needs and were directly funded by
the Government. Without any expectation of a return to that system,
Housing Associations could still expand their activities using more of the
security of the equity in their accumulated housing stock. Private
Funding initiatives could also be expanded to deliver more of the local
requirements if they were controlled and followed housing briefs struc-
tured by the local authorities. The lethargic planning could also be
improved to avoid inhibiting housing production unnecessarily. Unless
there are significant improvements, public housing will continue to
languish behind need and at the behest of the fickle market forces.
As an experienced architectural practitioner who was also a founder
member of a well-established London Housing Association, it seems to
me that the current procurement methods are inadequate to meet these
targets. The volume house builders, of course, concentrate on produ-
cing developments with a narrow range of house types in viable and afflu-
ent areas and understandably neglect the low income first-time buyers
or larger family accommodation in less well-off regions. While there are
inadequate incentives there will always be gaps in the broad spectrum of
housing need. There is insufficient research undertaken on a regular
basis to identify the specific regional requirements and local needs vary

so much it is always difficult to achieve a balanced urban housing envir-
onment. The Urban Task Force Report 1999 is still the most significant
document produced, setting out a strategic analysis of housing object-
ives for urban renewal. There is much still left to be done to implement
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its recommendations. The improvement of the housing stock is, of course,
the key factor to achieving regeneration in the urban areas.
The importance of this new publication ‘At Home in the City’ makes us re-
examine on the issues of providing housing in its wider strategic context.
1 It encourages us to question why so many of the better parts of our
historic cities here and in Europe generally, with high-density housing,
still retain a charm, character, human scale, open spaces, views and a
vibrant community environment that has been lost in most of our
modern cities and housing by the ridged application of Planning and
Building Regulations and current design.
2 It shows there is a need to look at the provision of the overall sup-
porting community and the social facilities, as well as physical infra-
structure, to ensure that there is a balanced neighbourhood in the
form of a human scale urban village to integrate these new homes and
their inhabitants. There is scope for these laudable ambitions to be
incorporated in Special Planning Briefs initiated by the Local author-
ity and the existing residents, by the supporting planning statements
and by the expansion of 106 Agreements.
3 Local authorities assisted by the local community could therefore
prepare a coordinated structure of social and commercial housing
requirements. This could give guidance to housing developers to
make sure that they encompass the wider spectrum of local needs.
4 Planning Policy Guidance Note No. 3 is valuable in ensuring higher
densities in urban areas, but this is really too low in many central
areas and too high in others.

5 Sustainability and energy conservation issues encourage higher dens-
ities in urban areas with good communication links that could be con-
solidated again by positive planning guidelines.
6 The local planning system is a perennial problem. It is often an obs-
tacle, not a positive assistance, in progressing housing schemes. It
sometimes takes longer to obtain the planning permission than to
build and occupy the development itself. House builders would be
prepared to pay extra fees if this would speed up their applications.
This funding could be directed towards the production of planning
briefs. It is very rewarding to work with proactive local authorities
and community groups within a predetermined planning framework
that has been initiated by them on appropriate sites.
7 After such pre-application work, the radical idea that planning appli-
cations would be approved automatically after, say, 4 months if they
were not determined within that time scale, would dramatically
improve results and galvanise the process.
FOREWORD xiii
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There will be lasting benefits gained from Graham Towers’ thoughtful
housing book that has been written as a result of his own experience in
the housing field. The illustrated case studies of live examples of com-
pleted housing developments are particularly interesting. These in-use
studies are the real test of the success of a housing development. These
enable the future residential providers, the clients, the designers or the
builders to understand the merits and disadvantages from the analysis of
these occupied living communities. This publication has the laudable
objective of stimulating the provider to improve the quality of our hous-
ing designs, their construction and their occupation, so that the owners
can truly feel happy in their homes in the city.
xiv FOREWORD

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PREFACE
I have long been an advocate of high-density housing. During my archi-
tectural career I have worked on a variety of urban housing types. These
have included new-build flats and maisonettes; the conversion and reha-
bilitation of Victorian terraced houses; and the modernisation and adap-
tation of multi-storey social housing estates. During much of the past 30
years high-density housing has been held in bad odour. This was largely
due to the problems associated with high-rise housing estates which
were, wrongly, regarded as the epitome of high density. The degener-
ation and social stigma associated with urban public housing did much to
tarnish the idea of living in flats. So deep was this disaffection that dur-
ing the 1970s and 1980s there was a general drive to reduce housing
densities and a number of prominent and progressive housing specialists
advocated the redevelopment of the inner cites with low-density houses
with gardens.
That this did not happen was partly due to the alienation that redevel-
opment had caused during the 1960s when swathes of old urban houses
were demolished to make way for unsympathetic and unsuitable new
blocks of flats. Community action was the response to this – seeking to
promote and protect the interests of those who lived in the inner cities.
It was through working with community organisations that I gained an
understanding of, and a commitment to, the engagement of building
users in the processes of housing design and development. Participation
in design remains as relevant as ever as a key to creating buildings that
work well, and is an essential component in producing sustainable hous-
ing in the coming years. Choice and democracy are critical inputs to
create housing that is pleasing to its occupants, meets their needs, and
stands the test of time.
Despite my interest in housing my first foray into community politics was

in transport – opposition to the building of an elevated urban motorway,
the London ‘motorway box’. As early as 1972 we argued that new roads
would generate new traffic and that, instead, investment should be put
into improved public transport. These arguments languished for more
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than 20 years as new roads proliferated, the railways were run down and
traffic congestion increased relentlessly. At long last the traffic engin-
eers’ solution has been found wanting. Traffic restraint and the promo-
tion of public transport are now high on the public policy agenda.
For a long time there was no obvious connection between housing and
transport; or, more specifically, between the advocacy of high-density
housing and opposition to urban motorways. Now, though, these two
issues have come together. The two imperatives of urban policy are to
meet the growing demand for additional housing and to address climate
change by reducing greenhouse gas emission. It is recognised that these
cannot be achieved through the continued development of low-density
housing sprawl. This not only makes poor use of land – an increasingly
scarce resource – it separates people from their work, from social facil-
ities and from personal contacts. They become increasingly depended
on the motorcar and increasingly embroiled in congestion. High-density
urban housing provides efficient use of land, the delivery of services at
low cost, and the development of effective and energy efficient trans-
port systems.
For its occupants it also provides a good quality of life with a wide range
of services, entertainment and opportunities for social interaction within
easy reach. The increasing popularity of urban living is testament to this.
High-density housing, properly planned, can provide good quality homes.
But, equally important, it can provide a high-quality public environment.
The older cities of Britain and Europe offer abundant examples of such
high-quality residential areas. In providing the many new homes which

will be needed in the relatively near future we need to draw on the
lessons of the past. These need to be combined with new technical and
social needs to create successful urban housing for the future.
***
A lot of people have helped in the preparation of this book. Special
thanks are due to Tony Monk. After a successful career as a principal
of a large architectural practice – Hutchison, Locke and Monk – which
produced many high-quality housing projects, he became Professor of
Architecture at the University of Luton. While there he sponsored and
encouraged my research on housing. For this, much appreciation, and
many thanks for agreeing to write the Foreword. Thanks are also due to
friends and colleagues who have offered advice, information and mate-
rial for the text – Norman Beddington, John Bussy, Suzy Nelson, Harley
Sherlock and Stelios Voutsadakis.
xvi PREFACE
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PREFACE xvii
I would also like to thank those who have provided information on the
work of their organisations and sources of the material included in the
text – Andrew Kliman of the Princes Foundation; Lisa Ashurst of Urban
Splash; Barry Munday, Peter Rankin and Brendan Kilpatrick of PRP
Architects; Mark Swenarton of Architecture Today; Natalie Land of Haworth
Tomkins; Kate Harle of Coolblue PR; Jennifer Ross of Tibbalds Planning &
Urban Design; Fraser Stewart of Gardner Stewart Architects; George
Mills and Ian Beaumont of MBLC Architects and Urbanists; Andrew
Ogorzalek of PCKO Architects; Linda McCarney of Alford Hall Mognahan
and Morris; Alistair Hackland of Hackland and Dore; Sten Gromark and
Michael Eden for information on Swedish housing projects; Judit Székely
and Ágnes Cséry for help with the Budapest case study.
Finally, this book has been produced without commercial or institutional

sponsorship. While this has had financial disadvantages it has allowed me
to reach conclusions unencumbered by external influences.
Graham Towers
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The design of the house has acquired a prominent place in architectural
history. But ‘house’ and ‘housing’ areas are not the same thing. While the
historians of design lavished attention on the mansions and palaces of the
rich they paid little heed to the everyday architecture which surrounded
them – the mass of domestic buildings that were home to everyone else
and which together constituted housing. Even in more recent times the
architect-designed house has attracted a great deal of attention. At their
most authoritative, such houses have had a seminal influence on a whole
movement. Philip Webb’s Red House became the lodestone for Arts and
Crafts architecture. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie Houses set the agenda
for one branch of Modernism; the early houses of Le Corbusier set it
for another.
Ever since, the architect-designed house has remained a distinctive building
type. Such houses are, almost exclusively, built for wealthy clients. Being
rich they can afford large and often spectacular sites. Some of the most
famous houses have exploited such opportunities. Wright’s Falling Water
made much of a woodland stream on a steep hillside. Philip Johnson’s
Glass House enjoyed a site so large that all the walls could be made trans-
parent without risk of overlooking from prying eyes. Being rich, such
clients set lavish briefs with large and multiple spaces and expensive mater-
ials. These factors make the individual house a challenging design problem.
The interaction of many spaces of different functions is a complex prob-
lem of spatial geometry and planning. The procurement of rare or expen-
sive materials and components is a time-consuming process. Externally the
house has to address all directions, making the most of relationships

between indoors and outdoors while at the same time creating a visual
impact that reflects the prestige of its owner and the aspirations of its
designer. What it does not have to do is to pay much attention to the
neighbours.
In the design of housing, on the other hand, neighbourliness is the first
principle. All housing schemes involve the design and development of a
INTRODUCTION
WHAT IS URBAN HOUSING?
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number of homes together – often a large number. These homes have
to relate to each other. As a minimum they will have neighbours on
either side often joined on but invariably close by. In multi-storey hous-
ing there may be neighbours above and below as well. The homes can
only face in two directions and sometimes only in one, giving critical
importance to orientation. The homes must be planned to avoid nega-
tive interaction such as overlooking and noise nuisance. While housing
can be for the rich – the Georgian terrace of the past, the urban pent-
house of today – most often it is not. Housing is for everyone. It has to
be affordable and, for the most part, that means modest. Spaces are
small-scale and limited in number. They are divided into well-understood
functions. Materials and components have to be relatively cheap. This
means that plans can be standardised and components mass produced.
The critical aspects of housing design lie outside the individual homes.
Housing developments must share a common access system. This must
be secure and easily maintained. There must be a shared system of ser-
vice delivery and waste removal. Most importantly, the individual homes
will collectively define form and space. The complexity of housing design
lies not in the planning of individual houses, flats and maisonettes but in
the way they interact. It is this interaction that determines the nature of
our towns and cities in terms of their vitality, security, community and,

not least, in the quality of the external spaces where we lead the public
parts of our lives. Because housing is, by far, the predominant building
type it is the quality of its design and the nature of the spaces it creates
which defines urbanity in its various forms.
URBS VERSUS SUBURBS
It is often said that Britain is a predominantly urban country. Statements
such as ‘over 80 per cent of the English population live in towns and
cities of over 10 000 people’
1
lend support to this view. But they mask a sig-
nificant cultural and social divide between the old cities and the suburbs
and satellite towns. By the end of the eighteenth century Britain had estab-
lished a strong urban tradition. These towns and cities are now part of our
heritage and are widely admired. What makes them so commendable is
not so much the architecture of individual buildings – though some are of
key significance. Rather it is the quality of the environment they created.
These old cities were predominantly made up of houses or commercial
premises with housing over. The buildings had a harmonious quality. This
derived partly from their scale – building height was limited both by
2 INTRODUCTION
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technology and by the number of stairs that could usefully be climbed; and
partly from their design. In the older cities this was determined by vernac-
ular construction methods and the use of local materials; in the later
ones by the application of classical principles and the development of the
Georgian style, which quickly became an urban tradition. These buildings
were joined together partly as a result of the clamour for town centre
frontage. The joined-up buildings created coherent spaces – streets,
squares, greens and marketplaces. It is these qualities – recognisable and
pleasant spaces lined by buildings of consistent visual design – which

define what we now regard as traditional urban character.
Even so, only a small population lived in these towns, which had developed
incrementally over a long period. In 1801 over 80 per cent of the popula-
tion of England and Wales lived in the countryside, with only 1.7 million
living in towns and cities larger than 5000 people.
2
Urban living, which
had been a slowly built tradition, suddenly accelerated out of control.
Over little more than a century the population as a whole increased more
than fourfold and by 1911 the urban population had reached 28.5 million.
3
This population explosion was fuelled by and, in turn, served to promote
the growth of industry, some of which attached to established ports such
as London, Liverpool and Glasgow. Most were smokestack industries,
which clustered around the coalfields of the North and the Midlands.
Rapid population growth meant rapidly built housing. Most of it was
poorly constructed and appallingly overcrowded. Worse, it was built
cheek by jowl with the noxious factories.
INTRODUCTION 3
᭡ 0.1 Stamford, Lincolnshire
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By the 1840s, conditions in the industrial cities were a serious cause for
concern. To some this was a concern for social welfare
4
but for the most
part it was a concern about health.
5
The polluted atmosphere, the damp
and overcrowded buildings, were all a breeding ground for disease. A series
of reforms were introduced culminating in the 1875 Public Health Act.

This legislation set standards for the construction of buildings, for the
provision of light and air, and better sanitation. It laid the basis for building
regulation to the present day. By the end of the century the problems in
the cities had eased. Population growth had slowed. New housing for
the wealthier classes had been developed, usually on the south-west of
the city centres where the prevailing wind would protect them from the
industrial smoke – Kensington and Belgravis in London; Edgbaston and
Moseley in Birmingham. New and better housing had also been devel-
oped for the less wealthy – the terraces built under the new regulations
which have now become the epitome of the Victorian city. A start had
been made on clearing the worst of the slums. But most remained and
for many the changes were too little too late.
Conditions in the industrial cities were widely regarded as intolerable.
This had long since generated a rejection, which affected all classes and
all political persuasions. Marx and Engels railed against the oppression of
4 INTRODUCTION
᭡ 0.2 Back-to-back housing in Leeds
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the enormous capitalist cities.
6
The reformist Chartist movement
sought to establish new village settlements in the countryside for urban
industrial workers.
7
Philanthropic industrialists created new model settle-
ments away from the grim industrial cities.
8
The Arts and Crafts
movement sought a return to a past idyll, extolling the virtues not just
of rural life but of pre-industrial architecture and the techniques of craft

production. From the middle of the nineteenth century, wealthy individ-
uals sought to escape the cities, building their homes in the pleasant
countryside outside. Many of these houses were designed by leading
Arts and Crafts architects such as Lethaby, Norman Shaw and Voysey.
9
The growth of the suburbs had begun and was to gather pace.
The philosophy and aspirations of the Arts and Crafts designers spawned
the Garden City Movement.
10
This sought to create new settlements
where housing would be light, airy and open, surrounded by green spaces.
Two such settlements were built – at Letchworth and Welwyn – but the
movement’s main influence was on the new developments which were
to take place in the wake of the First World War. Change was in the air and
the government promised ‘homes fit for heroes’. The Tudor Walter Report
written by the leading Garden City exponent Raymond Unwin set new
standards for housing with minimum room sizes, more open cul-de-sac
layouts, and much lower densities all in stark contrast to the derided urban
housing.
11
These were to set the pattern for a massive programme of new
council housing estates in the periphery of large cities. While these
INTRODUCTION 5
᭡ 0.3 ‘By-law’ terraces in Birmingham
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estates provided new homes for the less well-off, the middle classes were
equally keen to escape the squalor and congestion of the cities. Developers
built new estates of semi-detached houses inspired by the standards of the
Garden City Movement and the designs of the Arts and Crafts architects.
6 INTRODUCTION

᭡ 0.4 1920s council houses
᭡ 0.5 Early semi-detached houses
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